IT’S UP TO US NOW: URGE
COUNTY TO PASS LAURA’S LAW

You want your blog post to go viral, as Liza Long’s did over the weekend?

You write this headline: “I am Adam Lanzer’s Mother.”

Long, an Idaho single mother of four whose nom d’internet is “Anarchist Soccer Mom,” received praise for her unflinching candor — her post describes life with a 13-year-old genius subject to periodic fits of rage — as well as criticism for typecasting her troubled son as a potentially murderous suicide.

Several U-T readers forwarded Long’s sensational piece to me because it reminded them of my Sunday column, which drew from the emails of a San Diego doctor to get into the minds of the parents who, when they learn of yet another mass shooting, shudder and whisper: There but for the grace of God go we.

In his Newtown memorial speech, President Obama alluded to author Elizabeth Stone’s observation about the momentousness of having a child: “It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”

A lovely and true sentiment, but what do you do, what steps can you take, when your heart is over 18 and walking around, sick in his brain?

While Long makes a diffuse plea for more treatment options to prevent her son from winding up in prison, my column went down a specific path named for a woman killed by a mentally ill man who refused treatment.

Here in San Diego, our compass, as confused as anyone’s in the aftermath of a school slaughter, should point true north to Laura’s Law, the 2002 legislation that San Diego County, like all but two California counties, has failed to embrace.

As emotionally satisfying, and as supremely sensible, as it is to ban assault weapons and grotesquely large clips, we know the Rambo genii cannot be stuffed back in the bottle.

Is this frontier nation, saturated with some 300 million guns, going to confiscate legally purchased weapons? Are we ready for armed insurrection?

Are we going to recall and burn the films and video games that glorify carnage in diehard last stands? Are we ready to repeal the First Amendment?

Laura’s Law, on the other hand, is a practical godsend for parents of adult children rushing toward self-destructive mayhem. At a parent’s request, a judge would decide if an individual’s documented history warrants a county team to make sure the individual gets outpatient treatment. If that fails, the adult can be hospitalized by court order. He’s where he belongs until he no longer belongs there.

The most impressive earthly authority figures we know — judges in black robes — must be drafted to deal with the mental health crisis that has resulted in a rash of apocalyptic suicides as well as uncountable quieter tragedies that, at most, make local crime briefs.

Almost two years ago, the county Mental Health Board recommended that the Board of Supervisors implement Laura’s Law. Tragically, the county took a detour, initiating a three-year pilot program that, while it may have its merits, does not engage those troubled adults who refuse treatment.